No Pixels where harmed

I have been on a bit of a quest to get my post work better and to learn to re-touch portraits. So I've taken some time out to read what I can and to practise. The thing is once to get on the pro re-touching angle everything starts to make sense. No more bluring of skin, no patching and infact no harm to pixels at all.
Lets look at it this way, we spend a fortune on cameras that can capture the smallest detail, along with the sharpest lenses. We shoot in raw (well at least we should) and then it comes to making some modifications to the image in photoshop and if we read some of even the best photoshop gurus, we get started with patch tools, clone tools etc and of course the blur tool to "smooth the skin" What we are doing is damaging pixels, you might not know it at first, but I can bet if you get an image printed large, and I do from time to time, you will notice the damage.
Recomendation for you, go and read works from Gry Garness Better still go any buy her retouching for CS4, its so worth the money at £24. Learn to re-touch with simpathy.
Beleve me, photoshop is so much better when No Pixels where harmed.

Mart

Strobist meet

I had a great time hosting the Wirral Strobist meet again. A smaller turn out this time, possibly due to it being mid week. It did give me a good chance to work one to one with a couple of great and enthusiastic photographers. Daz and Neil have realy embraced the strobist idea, and I took the chance to grab a couple of quick portraits of them.
The weather behaved and a good time was had by all.

A great mixture of modifiers, brollies, grids and softboxes used and also a play at high speed syncing with pocket wizzards. Got to organise the next one now :-)

Mart

Carture one

I recently downloaded the trial of Capture one. I have to say that I'm impressed with the workflow and the resultant images that it gives. I have been using bridge to work on my raw files but it has some limitations. Lightroom works well but the thing that really gets me with Capture one is the tethered option. I can tether my D700 straight into it and that's a great benefit. Nikon's camera control does what it says but then that's another bit of software to buy.
Comparing the pricing means that with the tethered option Capture one is actually making sense.
More examples and thoughts to come.

Mart.

Sunset

Usually I am not a landscape kind of guy, it does not float my boat so to speak. Occasionaly I am in the right place at the right time and I get somthing resonable.
This was taken on a Wiral FlickR dusk till dawn shoot. Not the best weather and I called it a day about 1am.

Something different

I've been looking at new cars, need somthing bigger and more economical, final test today of the Vauxhall, Alfa is next on the list.

Masks we wear part 3

One of the final images from the "Masks we wear" series. I have a lot more of this series to come. Taken on the top of Helsby Hill in Cheshire with one SB800 speedlight and a shoot thru umbrella.
Enjoy,
Mart.

The masks we wear part2

Ok so I have been on about this project for a while. Its a personal thing for me and essentialy its about the ballance of what we do. I have to be a businessman, artist, IT guy and most of all I have to be there for family. It can be a stuggle some times. This is just a quick shot of part of the series, hope you like,
Mart